Shape of Snakes

within thirty minutes ... but I can't find anyone who agrees with him. These pictures were taken during her autopsy in 1978. I've had them examined by two independent pathologists and they both say the bruising to the arm points to severe physical trauma some hours before she died.'

'What's that in English?'

'Annie was murdered.'

The irritation from across the counter heightened abruptly, and I wondered why Drury thought I was there. A desire to renew an old friendship? Lust?

'Jesus wept!' he growled. 'Don't you ever give up? It's like listening to a skipping record. Haven't you anything better to do with your life than make a martyr out of a miserable black who couldn't hold her drink?' He lifted the top picture and turned it over to inspect the back for an official stamp. 'Where the hell did you get these?'

'PC Quentin sent them to me.'

'Andrew?'

I nodded.

'He's been dead seven years,' he said dismissively. 'Died in a car crash after chasing a joyrider at high speed for three miles.'

'I know. He sent them to me shortly after we left England. I wrote and asked him for copies because I knew he was unhappy with the inquest verdict.'

Drury gave a grunt of irritation. 'What would he know? The guy was still wet behind the ears. He had a half- assed degree in sociology, and he reckoned it gave him an edge over a home office pathologist and a beat copper with ten years' graft on the streets.'

'He was right, though,' I said. 'This kind of bruising'-I touched one of the photographs-'takes time to develop. It also suggests more than one contact. If her arm was hit in several places, the individual hematomas would have spread out, darkening the skin from shoulder to wrist.'

'A photograph proves nothing. She was black. You can't say what's a bruise and what's not.'

'These are color photos,' I pointed out mildly, 'so unless you're blind you can certainly see the bruising.'

He shook his head angrily. 'What difference does it make? The accepted version was given by the man who performed the postmortem and he said her injuries were caused by a glancing blow from a truck.'

'But not fifteen to thirty minutes before I found her. Two or three hours perhaps. And that means the people who say they saw her staggering about the road were probably looking at someone with severe head injuries.'

His eyes flickered unwillingly toward the pictures again, as if he were both repelled and fascinated by them. 'Even if that's true, you can't blame them for assuming she was drunk.'

'I don't.'

'Then what the hell is this in aid of?'

I licked the inside of my treacherous mouth again. 'I'm going to have the case reopened,' I said. 'I want the way you handled it investigated. I want questions asked about why a rookie cop with a half-assed degree in sociology could see that something was wrong ... but you couldn't. I want to know why, when he tried to raise it with you, you had him thrown off the case.'

He tore the photographs in half and tossed the pieces across the bar to flutter at my feet. 'Problem sorted. And if that's all you've got to show for the last twenty years then you've been wasting your time.'

Danny stooped to retrieve the bits. 'You don't want to let him get to you,' he said as he handed them back to me. 'He's a bully. It's the only way he knows how to control people. He's busting a gut to change the subject rather than explain why he did fuck all about this poor black lady having her face smashed in.'

Drury stared him down. 'What would you know about it, shithead? You were still in nappies.' He jerked his chin at me. 'And you're backing the wrong horse if you back her. It was your dad she wanted locked up ... your dad she accused of murder. No one else.'

There was a long silence.

Danny cast me an uncertain glance. 'Is that true?'

'No,' I said honestly. 'Mr. Drury asked me if I knew of anyone who had a grudge against Annie, so I named your father, mother and Sharon Percy. I never at any point suggested they'd murdered her. That was Mr. Drury's interpretation.'

Drury laughed. 'You were always good at twisting the facts.'

'Really? I thought that was your speciality.'

He held my gaze for a moment, searching for chinks in my armor, then crossed his arms and turned to Danny. 'Ask yourself why she brought you here and why she wanted you to see those photographs. She's planning to use you to get at your family, preferably by turning you against them first. It's what she's good at-manipulating people.'

Danny hunched his shoulders unhappily as if all his worst fears had been confirmed, and my son's voice echoed uncomfortably in my ear. I'd be sodding mad if it happened to me...

'Your father had an alibi from five o'clock until midnight,' I told him, 'and it was Mr. Drury who established it. He knows as well as I that Derek couldn't have killed Annie.'

'Then why am I here?'

'Because Mr. Drury lied about me to your family. He told your parents I was saying things that I wasn't ... and I need you to pass on to your mother and brother that all I ever accused them of was racism. And that was true, Danny. They were racists-probably still are-and they weren't ashamed of it.'

I touched a hand to his shoulder by way of apology because it was cruel to associate him with his family's hate